


Greatness

by myladyriver



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 08:39:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13050444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myladyriver/pseuds/myladyriver
Summary: Bellatrix sluggishly propped her head up on her arm, glaring at Hermione through squinting dark eyes. Something was wrong, she was...off, she was barely holding herself up and she seemed...bleary.





	Greatness

A faint crash awoke Hermione from her sleep, and she lifted her head, her heart pounding and her mind struggling towards coherency and alertness. Another sound, and she was out of bed, wand in hand. She didn’t bother to throw on her robe, and padded out of her bedroom in her sleep clothes (an old shirt and linen shorts) and towards the source of the sound, quietly following it to the kitchen. There, she found a figure huddled over her kitchen table, slumped in a chair, the recognizable tumbling curls of her lover pooling over the tabletop. Confused, but satisfied enough that her heart rate began slowing, Hermione flicked on the light. A low grumble and a slight twitch was her only immediate response. Bellatrix sluggishly propped her head up on her arm, glaring at Hermione through squinting dark eyes. Something was wrong, she was...off, she was barely holding herself up and she seemed...bleary.   
“What happened, Bella?” Hermione asked, her brow creasing in worry as she crossed to the table and sat down across from the other woman.   
“Y’know I have to hand it to you,” Bellatrix slurred, gesturing limply with one bony hand, “you, you Muggles, come up with some very creative s’lutions to lacking magic.” What? Hermione wondered. Was that an answer?  
“Bella…”  
Bellatrix snorted, and rested her chin back on her forearm.   
“My wand,” she continued, “is being monitored.” Her disdain was evident, and she blinked dolefully at Hermione. “I need...I need to get away from myself and the screaming, need it to stop, just for a little while you’nderstand. But my wand…” She pouted, and Hermione slid her hand across the table to take Bella’s hand in hers. Bellatrix rubbed her nose on her sleeve and sighed softly, and Hermione’s heart sank.   
“You’re high.” It wasn’t a question.   
“Like I said,” Bellatrix hummed, “creative so-lutions.”   
“What,” Hermione closed her eyes for a moment, “are you on?” Bellatrix sighed again, this time the breath exhaling contentment.   
“Good things.” She’d let her ride slide shut, and it was becoming clear to Hermione that she wasn’t going to be getting much out of the trashed witch tonight. A problem for tomorrow.  
“Come on, baby,” she murmured, “time to get to bed. Are you going to come to bed with Hermione, lovey?” Bellatrix beamed sleepily, picking her head up as Hermione came over to her side of the table and slipped an arm around her shoulders.   
“Mmmmm, come to bed? Canni?” Slurring and emanating the delight of a child, she broke Hermione’s heart.   
“Yes, angel, you’re going to come to bed with me, and we’re going to get all cozy, okay baby?” The promises were whispered into dark ringlets, amongst scattered kisses. She heaved Bella up into a semi-standing position, the older woman wrapping her arms around Hermione’s waist and nuzzling her neck.   
“My ‘Mione,” she mumbled. “My sweet Mmmm,” she trailed off, her words becoming unintelligible and lost in Hermione’s shoulder.   
“Come on, pretty one. Come with me,” Hermione encouraged as she guided her back into the bedroom, settling her carefully in bed under a pile of covers that seemed to delight the inebriated woman.   
“Okay,” Bellatrix breathed, pulling her lover flush against her torso. “But you stay. You stay. You make it all so quiet.” Hermione’s whole body ached in sympathy at those words, and she pressed a soft kiss to Bella’s forehead.   
“Oh baby. I stay. I stay. I’m not going anywhere.”

A groan rumbled from the heap of pillows and covers when a teacup, a glass of water, and a bottle of paracetamol was set down on the bedside table. Hermione glanced down at the witch in her bed, and held in a sigh. This wasn’t going to be pleasant. She settled onto the edge of the bed and smoothed away tendrils of hair from Bellatrix’s face.   
“Come on, you. I have tea.”  
“You could have God’s left earlobe and I wouldn’t give a fuck. Leave me ‘lone.”  
“Ohh you sullen thing. Come along, sweet thing. Let me help.” Hermione gently pulled Bella up until she was propped up against her pillows, leaning heavily on Hermione, and the thought struck her that hungover Bellatrix just might bear a striking resemblance to teenage Bellatrix.   
“Hurts,” the older witch grumbled, shifting uncomfortably.   
“Then don’t go playing around with Muggle narcotics,” Hermione scolded, and held out three of the paracetamol in the palm of her hand for Bella to take with the water. Bellatrix glared suspiciously at the pills, until Hermione lightly tapped the top of her head and said “It’s for the pain. Go on.”  
“Can’t fucking trust these damned Muggle inventions,” Bellatrix huffed, slamming the pills back and chasing them with water just the same. “Tea?” she asked, blinking up at Hermione. Ignoring the foul-mouthed complaints, Hermione simply handed her the teacup and took back the glass of water that was thrust her way. 

Bellatrix’s POV

“I’m grateful that you can come home to me, come here,” Hermione said quietly, genuine warmth and happiness gracing her face. “That you know you have a place to come, a place here is your own.” My breath hitched in my throat as a small part of me wondered, Even when I’m inexplicably an emotional wreck? Even when I stumble into your kitchen high off my arse, or show up covered in the blood of your comrades? I kept the question to myself, however; I already knew the answer.  
“We’re lucky,” I agreed, tucking a soft lock behind her ear as I gazed intently at her familiar visage. I thought that I could detect a few lines in her face that had not been there when we’d met, and I imagined that they were our story, our passage through time together. I ran my hands along her form until they were settled on her waist, ducking my head so that my temple lay against her neck and all I could see were a trio of freckles in the dip of her collar bone.  
“My dearest partner of greatness,” I breathed into her skin, my fingers curling against her hip.  
“Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, raze out the written troubles of the brain, and with some sweet oblivious antidote cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff which weighs upon the heart?” Hermione quoted a moment later, her words quietly sad and a reply to my own heavy rumination, and not the scene from which I spoke.  
“You have,” I promised, my lips spreading into a smile as I kissed her shoulder. “As much as anyone ever could, my love. I’m still here, eh? The Queen, my Lord, is not dead.”


End file.
